


Jodariel in the Moonlight Alcove

by Hatsage7



Series: Pyre: Getting Off Easy [2]
Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: Intrusive Thoughts, Masturbation, No Romance, Other, Violent Thoughts, also i just couldn't find a way to justify jodariel being comfortable enough with anybody yet, cuz ew, i am specifically NOT implying hedwynXjodariel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:33:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatsage7/pseuds/Hatsage7
Summary: Jodariel has difficulty getting over many, many things that happened to her before Exile. The Reader's made it harder to get on, in the worst possible way.(After the first Liberation Rite, where Hedwyn was anointed)





	Jodariel in the Moonlight Alcove

**Author's Note:**

> (There's a fucking *excellent* set-up with being a Demon as a metaphor for struggling with any form of depression -- body dysphoria is the most obvious, or just straight up depression -- but I could barely manage to write about intrusive thoughts. Someone with talent bLEASE)

The shallow pools of water in the Moonlight Alcove were crisp and cool. As clear as the summer sky, refreshing and nearly perfect.

But they weren’t nearly deep enough.

At the deepest part of the deepest pool, any other member of the Nightwings would have been completely submerged (well, perhaps not Hedwyn, but he had won his freedom from the Downside three days earlier, the first person in years to have done so.)

The water barely came up to Jodariel’s chest. 

For her, the idyllic mountainside grotto was less a sanctuary than a reminder of everything that had changed since she had been banished to the Downside. Of how much she had changed in exile, mentally, emotionally, physically.

As she was now, she was forced to bathe by standing and dunking her head in the water or otherwise awkwardly lay on the sloped floor of the pool. It gave her too much time to think, standing and scrubbing and washing her head of thick blond hair (to say nothing of the horns), for she would have much preferred being able to swim. 

Jodi sighed loudly and plunged her head into the pool again, her horns putting up great resistance underwater. She held herself there for a long time, just to think.

Hedwyn. A friend from before her exile, her closest friend afterwards. Years spent together, travelling, surviving. Meeting Rukey and forming a true fellowship.

Still  **changing** .

Every day she was reminded of her changes. Her enormous height, her powerful, slow legs that allowed her to leap great distances, her  **horns** , her fucking  **cloven hooves** \-- the fucking lungs that allowed her to stay underwater for minutes at a time. 

She wanted to scream. She settled for taking her head out of the water and looking up at the sky. 

Hedwyn had done so much to keep her from losing her  **mind** in the Downside. And now he was gone, and no one was talking about it. They were very pointedly not talking about him, and why should they? Jodi kept slinking off to be by herself, leaving Rukey without anyone to open up to. The others -- surely Fae missed him. Did Tariq? Did Ti’zo? Did the wyrm or (Scribes-be-damned) the Harp even regard him as a  **friend, or just another fucking warrior** ?

“ **And then there was that** **_Scribes-damned_ ** **_Reader_ ** **.** Why  **Hedwyn** first!? The Reader used him in almost every trial, the three of us worked so well together. We could have **beaten any triumvirate** together, could have  **smashed every single miserable enemy we encountered. But the** **_Reader_ ** **just** **_had_ ** **to let the best man I’ve ever known leave! Threw him out like so much GARBAGE! If we didn’t need them, I would --** ”

**She shook her head** and stopped  **yelling** in the middle of the night. She dunked her head beneath the water and just... tried to think about anything else. Went over tactics for the Trials. Names of armor and polearms. Counted up and down from 20, like she  **used** to do with -- like she used to do.

And when she stood back up her entire face was wet and she couldn’t tell if she had been crying.

Jodi got out of the pool, washed well enough for now. She toweled off, lay the cloth beneath a tree, and sat there after donning a worn brown shirt with matching shorts. Her hair needed to dry anyway, so she might as well sit down.

Upon reflection, Hedwyn’s departure had made her irrationally angry, irrationally lonely. She should just talk to the others… even the Reader… about the Trial if she was so upset by it.

But Jodariel didn’t want to talk.

She just wanted to feel better, and short any alcohol --

Jodi gave her breast a tentative grope, and was surprised to find her hips shifting at the touch.

“...fuck it.”

She dipped her hand into her waistband, spreading her legs and easing two fingers inside herself. Her eyes closed as she tried to create a suitable fantasy to help her get off.

The demon in the Tempers, from the Liberation Rite. Large, even for a demon, though still greasy and with a noticeable belly. Not quite her type, but not unattractive. She imagined her calloused, over-large fingers as his, rough and undiscerning. Strong arms pinning her with just the right amount of force against the tree, yet another hand  **grabbing** at her breasts,  **jolting** her with  **force** from above and below, until his  **aggressive tongue --**

She shook her head. It wasn’t good enough. Rather, it was too good, too rough, and wasn’t helping her properly  _ cope _ with the situation.

Back to the demon (Ignatius? Ignatio?). His fingers still rough, but his other hand caressing her, stroking her soft skin with grace and gentleness. She moved her fingers faster. Yes, tender touches that made her feel feminine again, always a challenge even before Exile. He caressed her and spoke -- 

_ “Yeah, baby, you know demons like us need to stick together. Now, give me some sugar, darling! Ahehehe --” _

Scribes dammit.

_ “It’s your fucking fantasy,  _ **_you_ ** _ write better dirty talk if you want it so badly.” _

Jodariel dismissed the scenario altogether. Was it worth brute forcing her way to an orgasm? No, she really had better try to get  **some** satisfaction from tonight. She rolled back her shoulders and tried to relax. Less physical, that would probably just stir up unwanted feelings about her body anyway. She needed someone with enough class and dignity to make her  **feel** good, emotionally.

Tinderstauf, that pretentious Sap from the Chastity. She scoffed out loud. Not even worth considering.

That woman with wings who oversaw the Liberation Rite? She was attractive enough, but wings reminded her of Harps, and the Liberation Rite reminded her of -- no, somebody else.

Nobody in particular, then. A person who looked a little bit like old flames and fellow soldiers and a few people she had known very early on in her exile, who could whisper sweet nothings in her ear and just  _ hold her _ . She was properly aroused now, fingers slick with a different type of wetness. She was kissing the person in her dreams as they continued to caress her, as they entered her and the two began making love. So romantic, the kind she had never  _ really _ gotten for herself.

_ “And you deserve it, Jodi. You deserve as much love as you can stand, and I’ll be here for you no matter what. Even when you no longer love yourself and think that you’re a monster, I’ll know the truth and care for you still.” _

She began breathing harder, slipped another finger inside herself as she slowly built her way towards climax.

_ “After all, you thought Hedwyn was a monster, and you still loved him.” _

...what?

_ “He was a coward, a deserter. He abandoned his post and got his comrades killed. Brothers and sisters in arms died when he could have saved them.” _

She stopped masturbating and sat up, shaking the thoughts from her head. Jodariel had never, not  _ once _ blamed Hedwyn for what he did, and he had a perfectly good reason for leaving his post -- he didn’t abandon it.

_ “That’s right, he left it to meet with his lover, didn’t he? A  _ **_Harp_ ** _. She must have been at least as attractive as the one that joined the Nightwings to make him abandon all his friends.” _

It was the  **Reader’s** voice. Of course it was. He didn’t know  **anything** about Hedwyn, or his past. After everything Hedwyn did for the Nightwing in the Rites, how could the  **Reader** even  **think** about judging him?

_ “That’s true, Hedwyn  _ **_did_ ** _ prove himself in the Rites. He and Rukey certainly did much more than  _ **_you_ ** _ , that’s why he got to go home.” _

He earned it.

_ “He did! The  _ **_Scribes_ ** _ judged him and found him worthy, and absolved him of his previous sin of desertion by letting him do it again! He abandoned his friends who fought to help him go home. Isn’t that  _ **_funny_ ** _?” _

It wasn’t like that!

_ “Hedwyn betrayed and abandoned you, Jodi. He took a good, hard look and you and decided to leave you in the dirt with the rest of the freaks. With a  _ **_Harp_ ** _.” _

“He **didn’t** do that! That was **you! The Reader made him --** ”

_ “-- made him leave you? The Reader threatened Hedwyn and told him that he  _ **_had_ ** _ to be freed from this nightmarish hell, or else… what, exactly? He left you, I understand why you hate him. Maybe if you had talked more, maybe if you had told people how long you’ve been here… but then again, who ever listens to you anyways?” _

“I… I don’t… ”

_ “It’s ok. Everybody else is  _ **_evil_ ** _ and  _ **_cruel_ ** _ , why not your friends?  _ **_Why not you?_ ** _ You would have left everyone behind just like Hedwyn did, if you were so chosen. Oh, but you need friends to fight for you, don’t you? And now one of them is  _ **_gone_ ** _. He left you with a Harp, knowingly. Willingly.” _

She curled herself up into a ball, unable to stop the thoughts from coming. “Please… stop. Just  **leave me alone!** ”

_ “You’ll never be alone, Jodi. You’ll be stuck here  _ **_forever_ ** _ , rotting away in a  _ **_sick joke of a body_ ** _. But I’ll be here. I’ll never leave you, because I  _ **_can’t_ ** _! Just us. Just the  _ **_monsters_ ** _.” _

_“If I were_ ** _you_** _,_ _I think --_ ** _yes. You should just --_** _Jodariel?”_

“Jodariel!”

She looked up. It almost sounded like the voice was… real, that time.

“...Jodi? Are you alright?”

On her left. It was  **him** . The Reader was in the cloak that they wore like a safety blanket, easy to identify, branding them as the “worst” manner of criminal… and also the  **most important member** of the Nightwings. Other than that, they were wearing grey underclothes, like they had just gotten out of bed to… walk in the woods?

It didn’t  **matter** . Jodariel stood up and kept her voice carefully level. “I’m fine. I just needed some privacy.”

The Reader stood awkwardly, rubbing the back of their neck. “Oh, I see. Is it alright if I… talk with you, for a little while.”

She grunted. The absolute  **last** person she wanted to talk to right now was the  **Reader** . “Why?”

“It’s Fae. She… it was hard for her to explain, but I think she had a bad dream where  _ you _ were having a bad dream? Anyway, she woke up and she was pretty upset, and when we got her to go back to sleep, Rukey mentioned that he hadn’t seen you since lunch. I said I’d look for you.”

_ “No friends left but  _ **_this one,_ ** _ excellent work, Jodi.” _

Jodariel clenched and unclenched her fists. “The others didn’t want  **anything to do with me** , huh?”

“We just didn’t want people to worry about you. You have --” The Reader cut themself off.

“I  **what** ?”

“You kind of -- you know, especially recently -- have a habit of wandering off to be alone. Which is fine! But we’re… it’s late, and there aren’t any Howlers up here, but people were just worried about you. Is it ok if we just talk?”

Jodi tried to keep her voice calm, because she knew that any emotion would give the Reader an excuse to talk with her about  _ feelings _ . “I’m fine. There wasn’t any reason to worry, I was just taking a bath. I’ll go back to the Blackwagon now.”

“W-well, wait a second,” the Reader said as they stepped around the tree to keep speaking with Jodariel (or more accurately, her back). “You’re alone for a reason. I’m sorry for disturbing you, I can go back to the Blackwagon and let them know you’re alright.”

“...why?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“ **Why** ? You came all the way out here to find me,  **why don’t you want me to come back?** ”

The Reader winced. They did that sometimes, reacted to what people said in extreme ways. She didn’t think they knew how often they did it. “You need time alone. That’s -- that’s why you’re out here. I don’t want to crowd you, o-or anybody else!” They did it there too, sensing the wave of anger that washed over her before she had a chance to even say anything. “...I’d like you to talk to somebody. You’re upset, so Fae and Rukey are upset, and nobody really knows why.”

She scoffed out loud, turning around to face the Reader properly. “Is that what you want,  **Reader** ? You really want to know  **why I’m upset** ?”

“...yes. We care about you, Jodariel.”

“Like you cared about  **Hedwyn?** ”

**The Reader** had the audacity to look  **surprised** . They blinked at her, desperate to  **defend themself** . “What? Of course I cared about Hedwyn!”

“So you  **sent him away** !?”

“I sent him back home! I thought he deserved to be the first one to go free… I thought you’d be happy for him.”

“ **Happy!?** I’m supposed to be  **happy** that he’s left us here to rot? That  **you** took him away without asking  **us about it?** ”

“Jodi --”

“ **Don’t call me that.** We were his  **family,** Reader, and you made him  **abandon us** ! You  **made him, without asking, you HAVE to know that!** ”

“Of COURSE I fucking do!”

It was hard to tell if the Reader surprised Jodi or themselves more with that outburst, but when they spoke again it was with a very weak and quiet voice. “Jodariel. Can we please sit down?”

“ **I’d really rather just go to bed.** ”

The Reader took a very shaky breath. “I don’t think you’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“ **Why not?** ”

“You’re furious. I can -- you’re literally trembling.”

She looked down at her fists, balled and shaking. “ **You** can’t help.”

“Well, then I’ve got questions for you, and you can shout at me some more, ok?”

Jodi tried not to wince. She really,  _ really _ didn’t like acting like a Demon -- shouting and fighting made her stomach churn. She also didn’t think that talking would help, but if it kept the  **Reader** from talking to her for a while, she might as well get this over with. “ **Fine.** What do you want to know?”

The Reader moved closer to the pool to sit down and patted the space next to them. Jodi hesitated, then reluctantly joined them.

“I… I feel like I should explain why I chose Hedwyn for Liberation. I mean, it seems like that really upset you. Can we talk about it?”

**_It should have upset everybody._ ** “That’s fine.”

The Reader nodded. “We can only free one person at a time. Not a whole triumvirate. I thought… I thought that, before we met Sandalwood, the three of you would be able to leave together. Like Hedwyn wanted.”

“Thoughtful.”  **_So you fucked him over by casting him out instead._ **

They looked over at Jodariel, frowning. “I didn’t cast him out, I did much worse. Whoever left first has to spend these next several weeks, maybe even months alone.”

She… she hadn’t thought about that. 

The Reader kept talking. “I wish that I had talked with you about it beforehand. Another thing  _ Volfred _ neglected to mention. Like the fact that, whoever I chose, they would have to be from my three… strongest? Most Enlightened? I’ve been reading the Book, but it’s still unclear.” 

“Anyway, I knew that you had been here for, what, at least a year before Hedwyn came? I’d never force you to be alone again. And Rukey… Scribes help me, I’m just not good enough to keep winning without him. Not yet. So I Anointed Hedwyn. He… he was selfless, and personable, and a good leader. He knew what it meant to make a sacrifice for everyone else. So, yeah, he’s alone now and it’s because of me. Because I thought he was the best person for it.”

_ “He’s alone because of  _ **_The Reader_ ** _ , and because of you. There’s your confession:  _ **_break his neck_ ** _ and this will all be over. It’ll be easy with your  _ **_freakish strength._ ** _ ” _

Jodariel spat back. “ **What do you know about him?** You  **barely** knew him for  **three weeks** , and you  **knew** he was the right one to  **isolate** like that?”

“Her name’s Fikani, right?”

Jodariel was shocked that Hedwyn had even  _ mentioned _ her to The Reader. “You… you know?”

“When we were crossing the Sea of Solis, we talked briefly about the things we missed from home. I… I wasn’t very genuine, I made a joke about missing the food. He was sad though.  _ Deeply _ sad, and I think he was more homesick than seasick.”

Jodi didn’t respond. Couldn’t respond.  **_What else did Hedwyn tell him that I didn’t know about?_ **

The Reader kept talking, somewhat nervously. “He didn’t say anything else about her. I just inferred. I… nobody  _ talks _ to each other down here, you know? So I guess I’ve gotten good at that. You and Hedwyn knew each other, probably from the army, because you both wear the same pin. Rukey has a prior relationship with Barker, one that’s probably based on business. And so on, and so on, and Hedwyn has a girlfriend. A lover, whatever.”

“How did you know her name?”

You would have thought she had stabbed them for how badly they deflated. In a voice she could only describe as hollow, “I didn’t mean to, Jodariel.”

“ **How?** ”

“When he turned around… I knew he was troubled. I was practically drowning in him, Jodariel. I’m pretty sure I could hear his thoughts. He thought about her, and when I focused on her name  _ I could see her _ . A pretty Harp, with dark blue feathers, and I knew that he loved her very much.”

“That’s what she looks like. You couldn’t have made that up on your own, and if Hedwyn didn’t tell you…”

“Don’t even fucking say it. That’d make me just like him.”

“Like…?”

“Sandalwood. Volfred. A shitty --- lying, manipulative -- I would never do that, Jodariel. I would never -- fucking,  _ read someone’s mind _ without -- it has to be other Reader stuff. Maybe -- maybe Hedwyn described Fikani or said her name in his sleep, right? That would make more sense than, than reading  _ minds _ .”

Hedwyn was a trained, experienced soldier. He slept too lightly to  _ snore _ , nevermind talk in his sleep. “You could have seen a Harp that looked like her somewhere else, and just made up the name.”

“Yes! Right, of course! Because, i-if I didn’t, if I  _ actually _ read his mind…” 

They turned away from her completely. Jodi was surprisingly torn between wanting to comfort a clearly distraught person and wanting to throttle them for creating this situation in the first place. She settled on interrogation. “What else did… Hedwyn’s voice tell you?”

“He… was concerned that he was breaking his vow. About letting us all go free together. Scribes, Jodariel, he asked why I would do this to him and asked me to forgive him.”

“That wasn’t him,” she said without thinking. “Hedwyn is absolutely the type of person who would blame himself for something like that, but it wasn’t him.  **It was you.** ”

“...Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. It’s just -- normally my intrusive thoughts sound like me, and not other people.”

“Intrusive thoughts?”

“Uh, it’s -- from time to time I get… thoughts telling me to do things. Just -- stupid, harmful ideas, from killing myself to shaving off Rukey’s mustache. Or even -- this hasn’t happened since I joined the Nightwings, but I used to have thoughts telling me I was worthless, or that I deserved everything that happened to me. Not helpful but hard to ignore -- intrusive. I guess now, it’s voices from other people, and not just thoughts.”

“Voices calling you a monster and telling you to kill people.”

“...Yeah, from time to time. Doing the Rites used to help, but it looks like now they just -- changed to something else. Sorry, I really didn’t mean to bring this up. Didn’t want you thinking I’m more messed up than you already did.”

“No. It’s fine. It helps, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your -- intrusive thoughts blame yourself for Hedwyn leaving, too.”

“What?” The Reader turned back to face her. “Jodariel, do you mean…?”

“If you have thoughts about Hedwyn abandoning us, and hear voices telling you he hated you and so does everyone else, that means you’re just like me.”

“Jodariel…”

“I-it means I’m a monster, just like you, and like you, I’ll be st-stuck here forever, and it’s a-all my fault --”

She felt arms wrap around her waist. “Stop it.”

Jodariel stopped talking. She was actually having some trouble breathing, it was coming in short, hot gasps, and her cheeks were wet for some reason.

“You know you’re not a monster, Jodariel. You know that nobody thinks that.”

“Hedwyn felt it. That’s wh-why he left me alone here, with that Harp.”

“You’re not alone. You have Fae and Rukey, right? They’re your friends too.”

“B-but --”

“The thoughts, or voices, whatever. Those don’t matter. They really don’t.”

“You were -- you were just panicking over them!”

“...it’s more complicated than that, a lot of it has to do with what Volfred and I have been talking about. Even still, they shouldn’t have gotten to me so much either. They  _ aren’t real _ .” Jodi was left speechless again. “Just… spend the day with the others tomorrow. All day, even if it hurts. Please don’t… don’t do anything extreme.”

“...I’m a monster like you are, Reader. Why should I listen to you?”

“Because you’re better than me, Jodariel. Hedwyn didn’t leave, I sent him away, remember? It’s not your fault.”

“...yes.”

“So there you go. You’re not a monster, you’re a good person. At least better than me. So we can just sit here and then go back to see everyone else, right?”

“...can we go back after sunrise?”

“Anything you want, Jodariel, anything.”

“...just… hold me like this.”

“...alright.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time. The Reader had wrapped both arms around her, but they were still sitting off to the side. They hadn't moved to a more comfortable position, or even at all, for apparent fear that it would scare her off. She had actually drifted off for a moment, and when she came back, everything was still the same.

“... Jodariel?”

“Yes, Reader?”

“Do you blame me for sending Hedwyn away?”

“...yes. Sorry.”

They shook their head. “Don't be. Can I ask, do you at least think I did the right thing?”

**_Of course, Hedwyn deserves to be far away from people like us._ **

“Don't say that. It's not about whether you -- I don't know, deserve punishment or something. Will Hedwyn be okay up there without us?”

**_He'll be better than he was down here._ **

“Jodariel, please.”

She hadn't said anything. She decided not to mention that to the Reader. “He'll be okay. He might not be happy, but he's --”  **_better than you or me_ ** “-- he'll carry on. Maybe he'll even meet Fikani, who knows? You… did the best you could, all things considered.”

“...and that's all you  _ can _ do, sometimes. Okay, thanks Jodariel.”

“...you can call me Jodi, you know.”

“You seemed upset when I called you that earlier. Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. It was just the voices. Out were right, I need to get over them.”

“...okay, Jodi.”

“...you know, I was trying to get off when you got here earlier.”

She heard more than saw the Reader's blush. “Oh! I see. Um, would you like me to… go back to the Blackwagon?”

“No. I mean, I'd rather you just, I don't know, go on a walk for a few minutes and then come back? I… I don't want you to leave.”

“Sure, I understand. I'll just… I'll be back later, then.”

The Reader hurriedly stood up and walked away, marching off into the woods back the way they came.

Jodariel sighed. Scribes, what an awful, confusing night.

_ Am I still mad at the Reader? _

... probably. But she didn't feel as… hateful or afraid as before.

She slipped a hand between her legs again, and this time she wouldn't be stopped by thoughts intrusive or otherwise. 

**Author's Note:**

> So there's a *lot* of potential with Jodariel that I had to write about her. It started out as smut but I literally could not write it without adressing her issues, at least in part. 
> 
> So, eh, not *technically* masturbation, but it still fits the theme. Next one will NOT involve such a, uhhhhhhh, "nuanced" take on the characters.


End file.
